TEE MYSTERY OF THE PYRAMIDS. 



267 



his flocks about the place where the Great Pyra- 

 mid was built, is a singular feature of Herodotus's 

 narrative. It reads like some strange misinter- 

 pretation of the story related to him by the Egyp- 

 tian priests. It is obvious that if the word Phi- 

 lition did not represent a people, but a person, 

 this person must have been very eminent and 

 distinguished — a shepherd-king, not a mere shep- 

 herd. Rawlinson, in a note on this portion of 

 the narrative of Herodotus, suggests that Philitis 

 was probably a shepherd-prince from Palestine, 

 perhaps of Philistine descent, "but so powerful 

 and domineering that it may be traditions of his 

 oppressions in that earlier age which, mixed up 

 afterward in the minds of later Egyptians with 

 the evils inflicted on their country by the subse- 

 quent shepherds of better-known dynasties, lent 

 so much fear to their religious hate of Shepherd 

 times and that name." Smyth, somewhat modi- 

 fying this view, and considering certain remarks 

 ofManetho respecting an alleged invasion of Egypt 

 by shepherd-kings, " men of an ignoble race " 

 (from the Egyptian point of view) " who had the 

 confidence to invade our country, and easily sub- 

 dued it to their power without a battle," comes 

 to the conclusion that some Shemite prince, " a 

 contemporary of, but rather older than, the pa- 

 triarch Abraham," visited Egypt at this time, 

 and obtained such influence over the mind of 

 Cheops as to persuade him to erect the pyramid. 

 According to Smyth, the prince was no other 

 than Melchizedek, King of Salem, and the influ- 

 ence he exerted was supernatural. With such 

 developments of the theory we need not trouble 

 ourselves. It seems tolerably clear that certain 

 shepherd-chiefs who came to Egypt during Che- 

 ops's reign were connected in some way with the 

 designing of the Great Pyramid. It is clear also 

 that they were men of a different religion from 

 the Egyptians, and persuaded Cheops to abandon 

 the religion of his people. Taylor, Smyth, and 

 the Pyramidalists generally, consider this suffi- 

 cient to prove that the pyramid was erected for 

 some purpose connected with religion. " The 

 pyramid, in fine," says Smyth, "was charged by 

 God's inspired shepherd-prince, in the beginning 

 of human time, to keep a certain message secret 

 and inviolable for four thousand years, and it has 

 done so ; and in the next thousand years it was 

 to enunciate that message to all men, with more 

 than traditional force, more than all the authen- 

 ticity of copied manuscripts or reputed history ; 

 and that part of the pyramid's usefulness is now 

 beginning." 



There are many very obvious difficulties sur- 



rounding this theory ; as, for example — 1. The ab- 

 surd waste of power in setting supernatural ma- 

 chinery at work four thousand years ago, with 

 cumbrous devices to record its object, when the 

 same machinery, much more simply employed 

 now, would effect the alleged purpose far more 

 thoroughly ; 2. The enormous amount of human 

 misery and its attendant hatreds brought about 

 by this alleged divine scheme; and, 3. The fu- 

 tility of an arrangement by which the pyramid 

 was only to subserve its purpose when it had lost 

 that perfection of shape on which its entire sig- 

 nificance depended, according to the theory itself. 

 But, apart from these, there is a difficulty, no- 

 where noticed by Smyth or his followers, which 

 is fatal, I conceive, to this theory of the pyramid's 

 purpose. The second pyramid, though slightly 

 inferior to the first in size, and probably far in- 

 ferior in quality of masonry, is still a structure 

 of enormous dimensions, which must have re- 

 quired many years of labor from tens of thousands 

 of workmen. Now, it seems impossible to ex. 

 plain why Chephren built this second pyramid, 

 if we adopt Smyth's theory respecting the first 

 pyramid. For either Chephren knew the purpose 

 for which the Great Pyramid was built, or he did 

 not know it. If he knew that purpose, and it 

 was that indicated by Smyth, then he also knew 

 that no second pyramid was wanted. On that 

 hypothesis, all the labor bestowed on the second 

 pyramid was wittingly and willfully wasted. This, 

 of course, is incredible. But, on the other hand, 

 if Chephren did not know what was the purpose 

 for which the Great Pyramid was built, what 

 reason could Chephren have had for building a 

 pyramid at all ? The only answer to this ques- 

 tion seems to be that Chephren built the second 

 pyramid in hopes of finding out why his brother 

 had built the first, and this answer is simply ab- 

 surd. It is clear enough that, whatever purpose 

 Cheops had in building the first pyramid, Che- 

 phren must have had a similar purpose in building 

 the second ; and we require a theory which shall 

 at least explain why the first pyramid did not 

 subserve for Chephren the purpose which it sub- 

 served, or was meant to subserve, for Cheops. 

 The same reasoning may be extended to the third 

 pyramid, to the fourth, and, in fine, to all the 

 pyramids, forty or so in number, included under 

 the general designation of the Pyramids of Ghizeh 

 or Jeezeh. The extension of the principle to 

 pyramids later than the second is especially im- 

 portant, as showing that the difference of religion 

 insisted on by Smyth has no direct bearing on 

 the question of the purpose for which the Great 



